Cyclist sues for injuries caused in accident with police car

Industry news roundup: week ended 17 Dec 2012:

This week it was revealed that a cyclist that suffered life-changing injuries after a road traffic accident with a police car will bring a compensation claim.

Donald MacLeod, a sixty two year old former journalist, had been cycling about through London when the vehicle in question, a police car on its way to respond to an emergency call elsewhere, struck him with enough force to send him quite literally flying through the air, according to eyewitness accounts. Mr MacLeod sustained massive injuries as a result from his impromptu flight across the road to the point where it was six long weeks before he emerged from his coma only to be left with such devastating injuries that he has difficulties speaking, moving, and caring for himself.

The poor man now needs 24 hour a day constant care around the clock in order to function on any level whatsoever, and due to the massive costs involved in providing Mr MacLeod’s care, he and his family have made a personal injury compensation claim for negligence against the Metropolitan Police Force. With the £30,000 raised by Mr MaLeod’s colleagues and friends merely a drop in the bucket compared to what he will need to pay for care in the long term, the injured man’s personal injury solicitors are asking for more than £1 million in compensation.

So far there has been no word on how the police will react to the lawsuit and whether they will seek to reach an out of court settlement or if they will defend the claim in court. However, eyewitness accounts do report that Mr MacLeod had not only been wearing a helmet at the time of the incident – a precautionary measure that may have very well preserved his life – but also a high visibility vest, meaning that the police may have little in the way of an excuse if they failed to see the cyclist on their way to respond to an emergency that day.